Watch This Rider Set the MTB Speed Record on a Stock Bike

Markus Stöckl is no stranger to going fast on a bike. He’s gone faster than almost any human on two wheels, clocking a 130.7mph run in 2007 down a snowy slope in Les Arc, France.

But last December in Chile, he added a new record to his trophy list: fastest speed on a stock mountain bike on a non-snow surface. Aboard a production Mondraker downhill bike and wearing a special aero suit and helmet, the 42-year-old rocketed down a trailless, 45-degree scree slope in the barren Atacama desert; he reached peak speeds of 103.7mph just 11 seconds into the ride. (You've got more watts in your legs than you realize. Learn to make use of them in Get Fast!, published by Rodale.)

Stöckl’s ride isn’t the absolute fastest downhill record (that’s Frenchman Eric Barone's, who went 138mph on a prototype bike in March 2015), but he does hold the records for both fastest speeds on dirt and snow on a production bike, with parts that anyone can buy.

“It was so exhausting, even though the ride only lasted for 20 seconds,” he said in a press release from sponsor Red Bull, which is producing a documentary on the so-called V-Max Project. “Even if you know it’s only going to be 10 or 15kph quicker than the last training run, standing up on the summit of the mountain, looking down and feeling the adrenaline was a very moving moment!”

See Stöckl in action:

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The record beats Stöckl’s previous best, a 2011 ride down the Cerro Negro volcano in Nicaragua where he went 102.5mph. To better that ride, Stöckl looked for an even more ideal spot and found it in the remote, high-altitude Atacama Desert, among the driest places on earth.

There, he found a 13,000-foot tall peak that reached 45 degrees steepness—roughly akin to riding straight down a double-black-diamond ski run. Crucially, the slope had a tailwind and a runout zone of more than half a mile at the bottom.

Stöckl rode a stock Mondraker Summum Carbon downhill bike with a Fox 40 downhill fork and 203mm disc brake rotors for stopping. But once up to speed, Stöckl said, braking or steering of any kind can be perilous.

“When you’re riding above 160kph, each and every extra kilometer per hour requires an enormous effort,” he said. “This force has an impact on the bike and the entire body.”

Crashes are a constant worry in speed attempts like this. Stöckl wore a custom teardrop-shaped aerodynamic helmet with face shield and a rubberized skinsuit over pads and an airbag vest system like those used in FIS World Cup alpine ski racing.

The make of the airbag wasn’t specified, but only two companies—Dainese and POC—make such systems, which were first used in Moto GP motorcycle events. The airbags rely on multiple-axis gyroscopes and accelerometers to detect a fall and inflate a protective airbag around the rider’s torso in under 100 milliseconds.

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